Paris 2024 Media updates

[Durban Sandshark]

Doesn't look like I will be returning to write a typical very longform post with info from various places in time before Christmas as I hope due to my workload leading up to it; very little free time for me available prior to Christmas Day. Today is my last off day prior to that, so I'll try to make this count. But I will very much go back to it in between Christmas and early New Year. Remember, I still have no computer/tablet/smartphone of my own yet but aim for all that in 2025. Still got lots of nations to get covered however belatedly. That said, there's plenty of Paris 2024 media developments right now. This will be good enough.

Arcom, France's television regulation authority, reveals this week that 71% of the French public watched at least some portion of their hometown Paris 2024 Summer Olympics with 59% of them watched the Paralympics on multiple platforms and rights broadcasters. Consumption was high all over, breaking French TV records like with the OC (most watched in French TV history), viewership on all three France TV channels as well as on the digital side, often made hybrid. Equally important, these Summer Olympics also significantly captured the desired under-25 demographic in France. Report on the first link: 

https://www.arcom.fr/nos-ressources/etudes-et-donnees/mediatheque/bilan-de-la-diffusion-audiovisuelle-et-numerique-des-jeux-olympiques-et-paralympiques-de-paris-2024

https://rmcsport.bfmtv.com/jeux-olympiques/jo-2024-les-chiffres-hallucinants-des-audiences-tv-et-du-suivi-des-francais_AV-202412190388.html

https://www.sport.fr/athletisme/71-des-francais-ont-regarde-les-jo-2024-1265340.shtm

Despite the massive 71% overall viewership and raking in monster national advertising revenues for France Televisions' Paris 2024 Summer Olympics coverage, its board of directors approved the 2025 budget for the public media group that's expected to be in the red, to the tune of 41.2 million euros, for the first time in 9 years. A law approved in November by the National Assembly - in the same terms as in the Senate - had perpetuated the mechanism installed provisionally since 2022 to help finance public broadcasting (France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde, INA, TV5 Monde and Arte), namely the collection of an amount from public finances to compensate for the elimination of the license fee as it adjusts to new pivoting in striving to maintain its editorial missions intact:

https://www.lefigaro.fr/medias/france-televisions-presente-un-budget-en-deficit-pour-la-premiere-fois-depuis-neuf-ans-20241218

https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/medias/france-televisions-prevoit-un-deficit-pour-2025-une-premiere-en-neuf-ans-2138572

Earlier this month, NBCU wins five IOC Golden Rings Awards for its Paris 2024 presentation. It wins Gold for Best Digital Offer (Web and App) for NBCOlympics.com and Peacock, Best Director for Paris Titans, and Best Social Media Campaign. Peacock Earns Best Innovation Silver for AI-Powered “Your Daily Olympic Recap” recreating Al Michaels' voice. NBCU Wins Bronze for Best Remote Studio and Presentation:

https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/nbcuniversal-wins-five-prestigious-ioc-olympic-golden-rings-awards-for-presentation-of-olympic-games-paris-2024#:~:text=THIS SUNDAY%2C DEC.-,NBCUNIVERSAL WINS FIVE PRESTIGIOUS IOC OLYMPIC GOLDEN RINGS AWARDS,OF OLYMPIC GAMES PARIS 2024&text=STAMFORD%2C Conn.,the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

Full list of IOC Golden Rings Olympic Awards winners can be seen here. 12 different broadcasters were awarded:

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/olympic-golden-rings-awards-celebrate-excellence-in-paris-2024-broadcast-coverage

France Televisions won five of these Golden Rings Awards as the host nation broadcaster including Best Athlete Profile Gold for Les Paris de Leon on swimmer Leon Marchand, silver for both L’album des Jeux Olympiques: Pour tout l’Or du Monde, its Olympic Torch Relay live broadcast presentation, and Aux Jeux, Citoyens!. Also won a Special Recognition Jury Award.

SuperSport viewers across Sub-Saharan Africa, not just in South Africa but particularly the latter, were left "tearing their hair out" when the channel cut to lengthy commercials for at least three days with the swimming competition in Paris, missing out on the finals overall results of their South African and other African swimmers' progress like Pieter Coetze. Even missing out on their entry walking out for the following event to the pool:  

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/sport/paris-olympics-2024/supersport-continue-to-frustrate-with-annoying-ads-during-paris-olympics-2024-breaking-exclusive/

Just a couple of days ago on Tuesday, BBC 4 aired a Paris 2024 2-part documentary review show at 10pm entitled The Heart Of The Games that brother film-makers Jules and Gédéon Naudet were appointed to make. BBC1 earlier that night aired the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards live from Salford at 7pm GMT, co-hosted by BBC Sport Olympic personalities Gabby Logan, Clare Balding and Alex Scott. For the record, Swedish pole vault star and World and Olympic record holder Armand "Mondo" Duplantis won BBC Sport World Sports Personality of the Year and British 800m gold medalist runner Keely Hodgkinson won BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Both are also on BBC iPlayer:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/17/tv-tonight-relive-the-thrilling-drama-of-the-paris-2024-olympics

https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/streaming/watch-bbc-sports-personality-of-the-year-2024-online-on-tv-anywhere

Across to Ireland with RTE's own Sports Awards. Paul O'Donovan won RTE Sport Sportperson of the Year for winning his third consecutive rowing medal in Paris, a second consecutive gold starting from Tokyo, also making history in being the first Irish Olympian to win medals in three consecutive Summer Olympics. Also Michael Carruth, the Irish welterweight who won Ireland's first boxing gold in Barcelona 1992 with support from a Cuban coach, was inducted in the RTE Sport Hall of Fame:   

https://www.thesun.ie/sport/14369366/rte-sportsperson-paul-odonovan-willie-mullins/

Globo won four Golden Rings trophies for its Brazilian Paris 2024 broadcasting coverage. It was awarded two golds in these categories: Best Content to Promote Gender Equality and Inclusion for its sixth Historias Olimpicos episode and Best Promotional Video; and silver in the categories Best Olympic Program for Central Olimpica with Tadeu Schmidt, Fernanda Grey, and Peti Gato and Best Remote Studio for Estudio Olimpico: 

https://ge.globo.com/olimpiadas/noticia/2024/12/03/globo-ganha-quatro-trofeus-em-premiacao-do-coi-pela-cobertura-de-paris-2024.ghtml

Nine Network Entertainment's Mike Sneesby revealed in August it paid A$77.3 million for its multiplatform Paris 2024 coverage as part of a A$305 million multiyear Olympic broadcasting deal expiring after Brisbane 2032--and Sneesby insists to business analysts it'll make a "material profit" form this despite a prolonged downturn in the advertising market:

https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/nine-reveals-how-much-it-paid-to-air-paris-olympics-20240827-p5k5td

An average of 158,000 Swiss viewers watched the entire 230-hour live program for the Swiss-German language Olympic Games in Paris on SRF2--245,000 viewers on average saw the entire SRF daily 14-hour broadcast--taking a market share of 38.8%. This corresponds to a market share of 31.9 percent and a record for the Summer Olympics. With over 24 million visits to the sports content and at least 14.3 million live stream starts, SRF has achieved the highest number of users of its online offering of all Olympic Games to date.

The men's 100m final that the USA's Noah Lyles won attracted the most viewers at a 624,000 viewership peak. The beach volleyball quarter-final between the Swiss Esmée Böbner and Zoé Vergé-Dépré and the Australian duo Mariafe Artacho/Taliqua Clancy (rating 536,000), the opening ceremony (rating 442,000), and the evening sessions in track and field for August 6-7 2024 also achieved high viewing figures. The medal battles in the men's long jump with Simon Ehammer and the women's pole vault with Angelica Moser attracted 489,000 and 486,000 people respectively. Sets Olympic online offering records with its nine livestreams achieving a record of 14.3 million starts--with August 4 being the biggest day with 1.9 million--for all three SRG members--SRF, RTS, and RSI: 

https://www.srgd.ch/de/aktuelles/news/2024/08/13/olympia-berichterstattung-sorgt-fur-beste-quoten-bei-srf/

[Cyriln]

Here are the 20 most-watched TV programs in France in 2024.

8 of these programs are about Paris 2024: the 4 ceremonies (the Olympic ceremonies are #1 and #2, the Paralympic ones are #7 and #20), 3 sports events (women's basketball at #8 and two finals of Léon Marchand at #10 and #15) and the news aired the day after the opening ceremony (#19).

However, the most watched sports event is France's semi-final at Euro 2024 (France's 6 matches are in the top 20)

Spoiler

Also, the yearly audience share of France 2, the main Olympic and Paralympic broadcaster, is up 0.4% compared with last year, reaching its highest share since 2010.

[Durban Sandshark]

Finland's Olympians came to Paris with some hopes of attaining medals this past summer. But Finland left Paris empty handed for its athletes for the first time ever, and there will be changes afterward from this disappointment. Despite this, regarding Finnish national broadcaster YLE:  

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The Paris Summer Olympics, which ended on Sunday, reached a total of over 4.3 million Finns on Yle's channels.

A total of 266 hours of TV broadcasts were produced from the Games, 747 hours of broadcasts on Yle Areena and 133 hours on Yle Radio Suomen Olympiaradio. In addition, content was published on Yle's website and in the Yle app.

Olympic content was watched on Yle's online services on over five million different browsers. The videos were played over 37 million times. Over 60,000 Finns took part in the Olympic Nut Game.

Joose Palonen, Head of Yle Sports and Chief Producer of the Paris Games, says that bringing the Olympic Games to Finns is at the core of Yle's public service mission.

– The world's largest event attracted huge audiences both here and around the world. We reached over two million Finns on television on the tenth day of the competition, and in addition, we reached new records on Yle Areena and online.

A total of 23 broadcasts reached over a million viewers on Yle TV2. The highest average viewership of 1.3 million was the athletics broadcast on the evening of August 8, which culminated in the men's javelin final.

Palonen says that the Olympics have offered Finns inspiring experiences and shared experiences.

– The Paris Olympics were a fantastic event, which many described as the best games ever in terms of atmosphere and setting. Thanks to Yle's Olympic team, which succeeded in serving the audience excellently.

The next Olympic Games are two years away, the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

Yle has the broadcasting rights to the Olympic Games for the years 2026–2032. The agreement with the International Olympic Committee covers all media rights, and as a result, ice hockey, aquatics and basketball from the Olympic Games will return to Yle's channels from 2026 onwards.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20104494

And this was how YLE managed to produce and harness its massive Paris 2024 project on its multiple channels and platforms without basketball and the swimming events that TV5/Eurosport Finland had (but got those on YLE Radio). As you would expect, the Finns were granted great priority as well as the major Olympic developments, highlights, and sports of the day and be international about it and going behind-the-scenes. Both in Paris and the Helsinki suburb Pasila with a special working relationship and togetherness, bringing the passion: 

https://yle.fi/aihe/a/20-10006913

Telemundo Deportes brought a cutting edge state-of-the-art virtual studio using Unreal Engine 5.3 and other technology for Paris, while still actually based in Miami, considering that prime real estate for a Paris studio was a luxury while still showcasing the iconic Paris landmarks in providing exceptional coverage. We could see this groundbreaking move become more commonplace for non-big budgeted Olympic rights holders in future years:

https://www.nbcuniversal.com/article/inside-telemundo-deportes-cutting-edge-virtual-studio-paris-2024-olympics

Didn't take long for SKY NZ, or any broadcaster for that matter, to make a mistake once the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics began. SKY NZ's Tim Evans interviewed the wrong swimmer following the men's 100 freestyle heat on day four with initially and actually talking to Israel's Tomer Frankel going through the race and mis-ID'ing him with the Cameron Gray graphic before throwing to the real New Zealander Cameron Gray moments later after SKY, back in Auckland with studio host Laura McGoldrick, realized the mistaken identity. Neither swimmer from that very heat, in case you're wondering, advanced to the semifinal. Forgiven with 12 channels and 32 Olympic sports to cover. We'll return to SKY NZ early next year:   

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/olympics/olympics-2024-mistaken-identity-sky-tv-interview-wrong-athlete/2SDECGIEABA4FKM7IHBIPEK2UE/

Belgium's Flemish community really turned out for VRT/Sporza's 730-hour Paris 2024 coverage on VRT 1/Een/CANVAS with 1,750,000 people, practically a fourth of the Flemish population, watching on TV every day, overall 4,223,000, with an average of 463,000 digital viewers on Sporza's and VRT MAX's 4 livestreams as it followed every Belgian Olympian in Paris. Radio 1/MNM/Radio 2/VRT NWS also got huge listener numbers.

Highlights for viewership include the semi-final of the Belgian Cats basketball versus France had slightly more viewers at peak time than the final of Remco Evenepoel's golden road race.

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But viewers also quickly found their way to our online channels and live streams, especially when Belgians were in action. An average of 463,000 people watched the 4 live streams via Sporza (294,000) and VRT MAX (169,000) every day. In total, 6.32 million hours were watched digitally. The peak day for the live streams was 9 August with 749,000 unique viewers. With the semi-final of the Belgian Cats, the bronze for Sarah Chaäri in taekwondo, the lost match for bronze by the Red Panthers in hockey and the double medal in the heptathlon, there was a lot to experience for the Belgians that day. The absolute peak in peak moment was during the final of the men's road race: 143,000 people watched Remco win gold via live stream. The top 5 peak moments are completed by the women's road race (111,000), the Belgian Cats versus France (107,000), the Belgian Cats versus Spain (95,000) and the men's time trial (87,000).

On the digital side with the Sporza app and website...

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Remco Evenepoel's golden road race was viewed the most with 2.95 million, and also the most this year. Other articles that had more than 1 million views during the Olympic Games: the heptathlon (the first day had 1.86 million views and the second had 2.07 million), the women's road race (1.53 million), Matthias Casse in judo (1.3 million) and the men's time trial (1.21 million).

Also displayed some innovations with its multifunctional studio set with extra effort on commentary and VRT1/Een offering subtitles for its 245-hour coverage:

https://www.vrt.be/nl/over-ons/nieuws-over-vrt/parijs-2024-de-vlaming-supporterde-massaal-mee-op-alle-kanalen-van-vrt

ZDF's and ARD's traditionally and usually shared German Olympic TV coverage this time with Paris 2024 was a major success. 7.78 million viewers watched the closing ceremony on Sunday, August 11, 2024 on ZDF as the most watched Paris 2024 event. The market share for the three-hour broadcast was 40.5 percent. Overall, ZDF's live broadcasts of the 2024 Summer Olympics were watched by an average of 3.37 million viewers, with a market share of 30.1 percent. In total, ARD and ZDF reached 53.4 million viewers with their television broadcasts. ZDF alone reached 52 percent of all potential viewers with its Olympic coverage on German  television. The diverse Olympic offerings on the digital platforms were also a great success. Out of ZDF's 122 hours of the Paris 2024 TV broadcasting portion, 

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competitions in athletics, swimming, handball, basketball, and women's football in particular achieved viewing figures of over six million. The top three most successful "Sportstudio Live" broadcasts from the Olympics were table tennis on August 5, 2024 with 7.56 million viewers, with a market share of 31.5 percent, a summary of the modern pentathlon with 7.43 million viewers, with a market share of 34.9 percent, and the women's basketball 3x3 final between Germany and Spain with 7.40 million viewers, with a market share of 35.0 percent.

ZDFmediathek saw an increase in Summer Olympic viewership for Paris 2024, up an average 62% from Tokyo 2020.  Event livestreams would have a total of 77.79 million views with a usage time of 22.19 million hours. That's an increase in views of 190 percent compared to Tokyo 2021. The most successful event livestream is the 2nd day of competition on July 28, 2024 with 2.05 million views, followed by the 4th day of competition on July 30, 2024 with 1.84 million views. The 14th day of competition on August 9, 2024 ranks in third place with 1.79 million views. ZDF News and Sports saw an online increase of 109% from Tokyo 2020. We'll get to ARD and Eurosport Germany and more ZDF in the new year:

https://presseportal.zdf.de/pressemitteilung/bilanz

This will be it from me for 2024. But certainly more, as will some developments on Milan-Cortina, will come in the new year... 

 

[Cyriln]

The official film of Paris 2024 will be aired tonight on France 2 and is already available on france.tv https://www.france.tv/documentaires/documentaires-sport/au-coeur-des-jeux/6775120-emission-du-mercredi-1-janvier-2025.html

It is the 1 hour and 49 minutes version of the 4-episode series that has been published just before and just after the Games, but it still has some exclusive footage.

The series version is already available on DVD and Blu-ray https://www.amazon.fr/CŒUR-Jeux-Blu-Ray-Tony-Estanguet/dp/B0DJFV7S54

[Durban Sandshark]

Just wanna somethings in here for the month of February as it winds down, not just for this new year. Plan to get more into this next month. So I can re-acclimate myself here. 

The EBU awarded France Televisions the EBU Excellence in Media Award for their "innovative and high-tech coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics" at September's IBC exhibition and conference in Amsterdam. France TV and its partners provided "combined cutting-edge technologies, such as the ST 2110 standard for IP-based production workflows to revolutionized its capabilities, allowing for high-quality, scalable, and flexible operations", usage of multicameras, "also embraced advanced cloud-based production techniques, AI-powered workflows, and 5G networks, enabling them to broadcast from multiple locations with enhanced efficiency and sustainability" in delivering this multisport event "in UHD 4K resolution, and with Next Generation Audio, giving its audiences an immersive and crystal-clear viewing experience.":

https://tech.ebu.ch/news/2024/09/ebu-presents-excellence-in-media-award-to-france-televisions-for-paris-olympics-coverage

One tactic France Televisions used during their Paris 2024 summer for presenting coverage was using an electric cargo bike fleet equipped with 5G technology "to beat congestion allowing mobile video news teams to move around Paris":

https://www.tvbeurope.com/live-production/pedalling-in-paris-france-televisions-cargo-bikes-deliver-olympic-coverage

Armand Duplantis was hyped when he broke his own pole vaulting world and Olympic record. 80,000 people watching at the Stade De France were hyped on that Monday when that happened. And so were people watching back in Sweden on Kanal 5 and Eurosport Sverige/HBO Max, setting the Paris 2024 Swedish peak viewing record at 2,453,000 million of him winning gold (for the former), living up to expectations. Duplantis' moment tops the other Swedish Paris 2024 Olympic moments of Sarah Sjostrom swimming to gold at the women's 50m free (1,732,000) and Truls Möregårdh's silver (1,624,000): 

https://press.warnerbrosdiscovery.se/post/magisk-mondo-mandag-historiskt-tittarrekord-pa-kanal-5

531,000 peak Norwegian TV viewers watched the eventual gold medalists Norwegian women's handball team's Paris 2024 debut match on TVNorge in their bitter loss to Sweden with a viewership share of 67%. Helped no small part with a favorable TV time start for Norwegians, compared to having 231,000 viewers in their Tokyo 2020 opening match. Matter of fact, the Norwegian women's handball team dominated the Norwegian Paris 2024 Olympic TVNorge coverage viewership. Get to that next time:

https://presse.warnerbrosdiscovery.no/post/over-500-000-sa-handballjentenes-apningskamp-i-ol

ORF's Oliver Polzer reported live from the Stade De France at the Closing Ceremony at 8:55pm CET as Olympia Live--The Closing Ceremony to close out ORF's Austrian Paris 2024 coverage but not before another Olympia Studio at 8:15pm on ORF1 and ORF ON:

https://tv.orf.at/stories/240811_olympia_schlussfeier100.html